1.   Five period films about heroism and sacrifice?

2.   I worried that in the quest to make it accessible to a modern audience, it would become a lame, hip period film.

3.   It exploded every prejudice we ever had against period films.

4.   On the job, however, she is typically swathed in silk, linen and lace, playing a series of self-destructive romantic heroines in period films.

5.   So after this slew of period films, are we ever going to see a Thoroughly Modern Kate?

6.   Stylistically they match, though, with period film and photographs, off-screen actors reading contemporary accounts, and on-screen commentators.

7.   That is a stupefying feat for a period film set in ancient China with characters who speak in Mandarin and fly rather improbably over trees and rooftops.

8.   The result is, by turns, a comedic and dramatic romp that has narrative and visual richness and an immediacy not often seen in period films.

9.   Yet it is neither a straightforward biopic nor a period film.

10.   Academy members in the past two decades have often favored period films of an epic nature, filmed abroad.